Cusco

Today marks our last full day in Perú and we are so sad to be coming to the end. Luckily, we are in an absolutely beautiful place to spend it - Cusco - the navel of the world, home to the center of the Incan empire. We had a slightly later start today since yesterday we calculated we were out and about for 17 hours (!!) and some of us were awake for a solid 20 hours.

Our slow start began with a visit to the Centro Bartolomé de las Casas to learn about the center's mission to promote sustainable agroecology, democracy, and collaboration with indigenous communities. From there we took the students to a surprise location at 12,000 feet... a reserve for llamas, vicuñas, alpacas, guanacos, and condors! This reserve takes care of animals in danger of extinction and some that have been injured so they can be reintroduced to the wild. As we arrived, we were given handfulls of highland grass to feed to the llamas - a few different breeds including the "Gigi Hadid" (ie short haired) and the "Bob Marley" (long haired) llamas. We saw 2 week old and a month old llama as well - did you know they can stand up within two hours of being born and start eating grass at around two weeks? 

Students had an amazing time and to finish the visit, we got to see a few women from different communities 7 to 8 hours away from Cusco who come to the center from their mountain homes to do traditional weaving for one month at a time - demonstrating their traditional practices, selling their products to support their way of life, and utilizing the alpaca to make beautiful products sold at the store, which many of us went crazy in.

After our energizing visit to the alpacas, we went down the mountain a little to see the Incan citadel of Sacsayhuaman. Sacsayhuaman is one of the most important religious centers of the Incan world and due to its importance, the Spanish decided to destroy it as much as they could. The city of Cusco was built by the Incans to be in the shape of a Puma (one of the three sacred animals for the Incans) and Sascayhuaman was built in the shape of its head. While it was more than just a citadel, it was an important religious site, Manco Inca used the site to attack Cusco and used it as a fortress. The site, only 5% of which remains today, was used as a quarry in the building of Cusco - stones taken down to build in the beautiful colonial center. Only in the 1940s did the taking of stones stop!

After our visit, we returned to Cusco to eat a delicious meal at an organic restaurant that uses local producers to support sustainable agriculture in Perú. The chef came and spoke to us and we learned that her sister works in sustainable agriculture in Monterey, CA and that she was inspired by what she saw in California with farmer's markets to start building out her own sustainable restaurant and shop! It is 15 years strong and the food was divine - we ate a chocolate cake and were shown the photo of the farmer on the wall she had purchased the cacao from!

Our final organized part of the day was a visit to the Cathedral in the central plaza - a massive building begun by the Spaniards soon after the conquest of Cusco. In our guided tour, we learned about the many ways that Incan traditional beliefs and practices have been integrated into Catholicism and can be seen in the Cathedral (where, sadly, photos were not allowed). A few cool things we learned about:

• In the entryway, there are statues of the Mother Mary and nuns, all of whom are represented as pregnant. This is because the Pachamama - earth mother goddess - was always represented as pregnant. Many carvings of women also depicted them as pregnant throughout the Cathedral.

• A large painting of the last supper has Jesus and his apostles at the table eating Cuy - guinea pig. The only apostle in the image shown with dark skin is Judas, interpreted as a protest by the indigenous artist who painted the work about the mistreatment of indigenous people at the hands of the Spanish. This painting is one of the few that has a signature, due to discrimination, more than 96% of artists were not allowed to sign their work.

• A statue of the Virgin Mary or a Saint had a blue cloak in a triangle shape to represent the mountains, considered sacred by the Incans

• A brown representation of Jesus on a cross is taken out and paraded around the city center whenever there is a natural disaster - as the Incans used to do with the mummified remains of their previous emperors

All in all, it has been a very informative and inspirational day, and students are thrilled to have a bunch of free time before dinner and a traditional dance performance this evening. Tomorrow, we will head to the Qorikancaha temple of the sun in Cusco and have some more time to meander before heading to the airport for our overnight travel home. 

Student highlights of the day:

• Cosimo's interest in botany seems to be matched by his architectural questions - very thoughtful, we are not sure what future career he will have.

• Siena and Gracie had a soft hand in our llama visits, getting up close and very personal!

• Bri died at breakfast and Arely and Gaby died at the entrance to Sacsayhuaman, reminding us that while one assassin was caught, he was working in kahoots with another, and this one has their eye on vengeance

• Things took an even darker (can you imagine?!) turn at lunch when Luis, Reid, Alejandro, and Felix were all found dead with knife wounds

• Our seis muchachas seem to be collaborating in killing everyone on this trip - which of them is our killer, we can only hope our few survivors figure it out by dinner-time or no one will be left

• K'Mani, Rediet, Shea, and Royal used advanced techniques to not make eye contact with anyone lest the killer get to them, we are not sure how they made it through the day, but they are currently four of our few survivors